He's NOT the Messiah NOR is he the NEXT Messi nor the NEXT Cristiano

A couple of years ago someone drew up a parody picture of Harry Kane, who in that year was also being seen as a person who would be a one season wonder, that just like Leicester City, would experience a great season but was still seen as a young kid who had in previous seasons been passed around the league from one loan period to another across multiple clubs.

If just one of those many clubs had any inkling of his potential they should have tripled his asking price and probably got Kane back then for $20 million, but hindsight is at work here being that his valuation now can be justified via the Neymar deal at the $200 million mark.  Even at Spurs his chance came due to the failure of Roberto Soldado pictured on the right side holding the Messianic figure of Harry Kane in the art parody above.  Of course the parody is heightened being that Messi resembles the word Messiah and Cristiano is similiar to the word Christ.  It only goes to show that soccer is a religion itself with it's own idolatry very evident.

It also was aided by the fact that his former youth team manager Tim Sherwood was given the managers job by Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy, (pictured to the left of the "Divine Kane" above).  Sherwood did not grow into the managers role but he did blood his youth prospects and Levy picked Pochettino because he too was known for developing academy players from the youth system.

On Saturday Harry Kane scored a hat-trick of goals against Burnley, then came Christmas and following Christmas, today he scored another hat-traick against Southampton.  Those 6 goals in the last two matches meant that for this calendar year Harry Kane had reached 39 goals, which is 3 more than the record previously held by the great striker Alan Shearer. 

It is this comparison with Alan Shearer which is most poignant.  Shearer still holds the record for most goals in the league and his record will require Kane to continue in top form for many years to come - but these days with Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and PSG capable of diving into their capital accounts to finance multi-million dollar deals means that it is more likely the case that the domestic goal scoring of Alan Shearer will remain untouched.

While Barcelona's Lionel Messi and Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo justifiably demand comparison, especially as they rose to their best at the same time in the same league, any comparison between Messi and Ronaldo to Harry Kane should only be made in light of the Ballon D'or which honours the best player in the world by FIFA, but Harry Kane should be compared instead to Alan Shearer - because his play is so reminiscent of him. 

Alan Shearer sent a twitter message congratulating Harry Kane on reaching 39 goals this calendar year in the Premier League.  It is a record that will probably be surpassed and that is the great expectation of Harry Kane, unless two things happen, a team like Real Madrid prize him away from the Premier League to take Kane to La Liga, or if a horrible career ending tackle ends Kane's career.

Otherwise Harry Kane is happy to be at Spurs and most probably will be on hand when Spurs move into their new start of the art billion dollar stadium next season.  Whether Dele Alli does is another matter because it seems Chairman Daniel Levy is intent on bringing back Gareth Bale, even if it means paying over the odds for an aging player.  It would be a shame to trade away Christian Erickson for any Bale deal. 

What will complicate matters is if Real Madrid need funds to buy Neymar from PSG.  Neymar who seems not too well settled at PSG could give Barcelona another firm punch in the teeth, should he orchestrate his way to Real Madrid, but then Spurs would have to pay over the odds for Bale given that Manchester United are still willing to break the bank for Bale.  Spurs could have sold Bale to United for 120 million pounds but settled instead to sell Bale to Real Madrid for 90 million.  United do have cheque book power even now.

Spurs 3-0 win on Saturday and 5-2 win shows how much reliance they have on Harry Kane as a goal-scorer, which makes Pep Guardiola's comment about "the Harry Kane team" that much more valid.  If the same parody painting of a Messianic Kane was painted today, the picture of Robert Soldado would be replaced by another Spanish striker failing to make his mark at Spurs, which is the single goal scorer that has been Fernando Llorente.  Llorente however has not been used that much by Pochettino, so comparisons with Soldado at this stage would not be fair.

What is fair is to finally declare Harry Kane a world class player who also has shown his loyalty to Tottenham.  As a world class player Spurs will hope that he finally helps the team to the missing silverware, though it seems Mauricio Pochettino is banking on winning the Champions League, just as Jose Mourinho was banking last year to win the Europa League to gain qualification into the following season in the Champions League. 

That is a dangerous gambit because unlike Mourinho, Pochettino has no prior record of actually winning anything as a manager.  Yet win or not, today was Harry Kane Day and his league record 39 goals during 2017 is an incredible achievement and one has to laugh now going back 3 years ago when he was considered a "one season wonder".

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